


Homesick

by mintsicles



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Gen, kind of, less at spoilers and more at 'this won't make sense if you aren't familiar with annie's backstory', spoilers for the female titan arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 03:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintsicles/pseuds/mintsicles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unlikely friendship is broken when Annie receives a subtle reminder of just exactly what the consequences will be for allowing it to continue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homesick

He didn’t know why she said yes when he asked her to train with him.

She had, though, and arranged a time late enough in the evening that they could have the area to themselves but early enough that their absence would likely go unnoticed. And when he didn’t really have it down the first night she offered to try again the next evening. And when he was still struggling to remember she offered to try again once more, and again the next night. Before long she stopped needing to ask at all.

Come to think of it, there were a lot of things he didn’t know about the girl with the pulled-back blond hair and the gray blue eyes. He didn’t know where she learned her unique fighting style, the likes of which he had never seen anyone else execute in his life, and he didn’t know why a girl who locked herself away from the world the way she did would have such a preference for hand-to-hand combat, a practice that requires you to look your partner in the eye.

What he did know was that she was good at it, incredibly so, a concept he had been experiencing first hand, regularly, ever since the day she flipped him during practice and he had the notion to ask.

He also knew, much to his relief (and general confusion), that she didn’t entirely detest the time they shared - though he doubted she would have bothered to ask him to continue if she had. His first lessons had been composed of cold glares and crossed arms, impact from each hit and kick leaving trails of bruises down his arms and legs, but as time passed her expressions became less critical, less distant. Every now and then he would execute something she had taught him just right, and when he looked at her he would catch her smile, if only for a moment, before she would notice what she was allowing herself to do and force it to disappear.

It wasn’t just her fading smiles, though. It was the way she would help him back to his feet each time she pushed him to the ground, it was a nod when he caught her eye during training, it was glances exchanged across the room during meals when no one was paying attention. It wasn’t romantic, it never was and he was satisfied knowing that it would never be, but there was something about knowing that this girl who set herself away from the world, who built walls around herself like the walls around their world, who glared more often than she didn’t and had yet to speak a word to the majority of their peers, knowing that he could make her smile made him feel … like he’d done something right.

Their friendship was quiet, both in the sense that no one knew (well, perhaps no one wasn’t entirely accurate - he _had_ mentioned it briefly to Mikasa when she had asked him where he had been disappearing to once, though it was never brought up again, and he was certain he had seen Reiner observing their training sessions from a careful distance on more than one occasion), and in the fact that it chose to manifest itself through moments shared and expressions and a mutual understanding of it’s existence rather than the typical conversation and compliments - though he was sure that catching a glimpse of her smile was just about the best compliment he could get.

Their training sessions were mostly silent, aside from the occasional ‘no, use your right arm to block that’ or ‘wait, how do I do that again?’ there was little need for verbal exchange, and besides, she wasn’t one for small talk. She never had been, of course, and he thinks that might have been part of the reason it was so surprising when she had suddenly decided to speak to him.

She had pushed him to the ground in an attempt to flip him over, but he had been training under her long enough to be used to this maneuver and have an idea of how to counter - though his attempt at doing so hadn’t gone exactly the way he had intended it to, succeeding only in pulling the blond haired girl down to the dusty ground along with him. It was nothing different than usual, mostly, but while she’d normally give him a look of mock disappointment as she brushed dirt off her pants and helped him back up, she didn’t She hadn’t even made motion to stand up, just to move off of him and push herself up on her elbows, inhaling deeply to catch lost breath. He watched her with turquoise eyes wide with alarm, recognizing this as strange behavior from someone he liked to think he knew. 

“You’re from Shiganshina.” She met his gaze expectantly once she spoke, gray blue eyes as cold and expressionless as ever. It wasn't not the first time someone had begun a conversation that way, though usually it was proceeded with enthusiastic questioning about his experience with the titans - what they looked like, how tall they were, if it’s true that they swallowed their victims whole. Somehow, though, he doubted that she’d care about that sort of thing, so he kept silent and gave a soft nod for her to continue, pushing himself upright. She mirrored his movements before speaking again.

"Do you miss it?” She shrugged, dismissing her own statement like she was sorry for asking, though he didn’t mind at all. She remained taciturn after her question, waiting in silence for his reply, which he took a moment to form, blindly wondering what to say to her.

“No, I don’t.” She tilted her head in idle curiosity, he elaborated. “It’s gone, so what does it matter. That’s why I’m here, y'know. I can never go home, so I’m going to make my life worth something - I’m gonna wipe every last titan off the face of the earth.” He offered an enthusiastic grin to complete his statement, as if the subject at hand wasn’t his desire to dig an iron blade through titan flesh. She nodded briskly, eyes locked firmly on the ground below, considering his statement, he presumed. He stood, extending a hand to help her up. He was almost surprised when she took it.

She shivered as she slipped her hand out of his and into the pocket of her sweatshirt, throwing a passive glance over her shoulder towards the barracks, unsure of how to continue. So he did for her, hoping to catch on to the real meaning of her words. “Annie, are you homesick?”

It was only four words but the look he found in her icy blue eyes made him wonder if he shouldn’t have spoken them at all. He couldn’t take it back if he wanted to, though, so he gave her a moment to reply, wondering whether or not she’d slap his hand away if he tried to take hers. She looked colder than she used to, though, and he wasn’t thinking about the chilly evening breeze surrounding them. He elected to let her be.

Annie blinked slowly before replying, and when she did it wasn’t anything he could have expected. “I'm not going to do this.” She lifted a hand to her lips, attempting to mask any expression she might be unable to repress, but her voice had already betrayed her cold composure. “I can’t train with you anymore ... sorry.”

She was silent as she turned away, walking alone towards the barracks behind them, but shock locked the soles of his boots firmly to the ground below. He wasn’t not sure what he did wrong, how just three little words could have sent the relationship they had spent months carefully crafting crumbling to bits. He wanted to run after, take her hand in his own and apologize, tell her how much those exchanged glances and meeting in secret and glimpses of smiles had meant to him, how much all of this had meant to him, how much she meant to him, but he didn’t. Whether from shock of the situation or fear of the warrior who he knew won’t hold anything back against him anymore (as much as she would deny she ever had been), he wasn’t quite sure. But he let her walk away, watching from the same spot she left him in, wondering what he did wrong.

She knew he’d get over it. He’d get over it, he’d learn who she really was and he’d learn to hate her again, hate her for what she’d done, hate her for what she was, like he should have, like he was supposed to.

… she just wasn't sure if she could do the same.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the ooc-ness, I haven't written either of them before. uwu


End file.
